Teshuva: The Power to Reconnect & Recreate - Rabbi Yitzchak Botton

[Music] the shofar itself represents the idea of chuhwa doing repentance returning to Hashem now let us appreciate within the shofar itself how this idea expresses itself in order to properly return to our channel the property to chuva one must look to his past deeds and of course he see sometimes he didn't fulfill exactly what he was meant to sometimes they even did things that were improper in two different of eras and so in that process of looking to one's past he's supposed to you know feel bad have a regret and remorse for those negative deeds for rebelling so to speak against a sham or even sometimes not necessarily consciously rebelling but you know because of different weaknesses within turning away from his true essence and its true path that a sham placed us in this world to be on that is what we call Kurata you have to regret the past that's step one of Trula step two is right now I'm a new person and I have to accept upon myself to change my ways I have to abandon the negative ways of my past and accept on on myself right now so from now on act properly to do the things that the Torah says to do and of course to avoid those things that it says not to do because that is essentially how I can be properly connected with Hashem when the person does chuhwa he decides to reconnect get back on the right track and bring himself closer to Hashem and that is the present and future that chuva you know affords us what this we can appreciate really chuhwa itself really expresses a range of emotions all the way from being sad and troubled to be very happy now this is also hinted in the shofar itself when we blow the shofar the sound we make are called takea that's the long unbroken sound that we make with a shofar and then there is terroir and shrugging these are the different types of broken sounds that we make with the shofar so the rabbi's explained the tequila itself which is a long unbroken sound this represents happiness and joy whereas the Shiva in which the word itself shivoham' is related to their they've been broken and the throughout both of those sounds that are broken represent sadness and sorrow so we see the show fun itself in representing chuva can be expressed this way looking back with regret and forward with joy really connects with the blowing of the shofar the sounds that the chauffeur make in that the sounds we make in connection with the past is the sorrow and trouble and the sound we make that's connected with the future is the joy and happiness so what comes out from all this is that the person that's doing truven actually is standing in the middle of time he's able to go to the back to the past and forward to the future through the the meditation within his mind and the resolve in his tuba so this brings us to a very beautiful idea brought in different as far in the Hasidic sorry I'm talking about it as well that the idea of chuva corresponds to the number 8 we're taught that the number 7 represents nature the idea of things in this limited world behaving naturally and eight is above nature beyond nature and in light of this we can appreciate that chula itself transcends the nature of the world this can be appreciated in a few ways first of all a person naturally becomes used to his beat his behavior his past behavior really becomes a part of him and it's not easy to break that a power that we have to tap into in order to break our past negative nature and recreate ourselves anew to be a better person that can behave better and differently that is tapping into this infinite power of chuva another idea that fits into this line of thinking is that shuva itself Y is truly representative in the number 8 which is above the world so thes are actually explained that super came before the world the world was created and everything that is created within the world runs through the laws of nature through the idea of the limited service that each thing in the world has everything functions the way was programmed to function but chuhwa being created before the world is beyond that it's beyond the limitations of time so therefore chuva is the mechanism that we can fix fixed time fix the mistakes that we did in throughout our time in this world but let us appreciate a little bit deeper how to routine accomplish this again since mankind has an inclination within him towards doing something wrong and and even in connection which pushes him even further so ultimately how does Shura fix everything so again since this concept of Coover really taps into the ultimate will of God in creating man so we're tapping into a power that is really beyond all other powers through the power of Trueba which we tap into through a sincere heart through feeling true remorse and regret we tap into a power that we get from a sham to recreate ourselves to become better to be able to overcome the things that cause us to fall in the past and that's the real beauty and power of Chula and that's why children is something that was created before the world because it really uplifts us beyond what this world really you know which imprisons us and through chuhwa which is representing the number 8 we really transcend beyond the world in that sense we can actually say a beautiful thought that's expressed in again Jewish writings that mankind although part of creation is also part of the Creator with the divine soul that rests within us we are on the one hand really not limited by this world and that's the same concept of children we tap into it's the ability for our soul to soar beyond the limitation and when that trickles down through the process of truth through meditating on it and through acting it out with our physical body we are able to transcend this world with all of this in mind let us take a look at a verse from from Tehillim and appreciate how in light of our discussion in chuhwa we could appreciate and understand this verse the verse reads a vachetta Matsutani that back and front god formed me you know one of the words for creation it's Sara forming creating man so God created mankind front side and back side two-sided now in light of the concept of shuva because through chuhwa we recreate ourselves so we can essentially say that shuva recreates a person how does it recreate a person while it creates person from the front kedem and a from the back that goes back to what we said that looking back to one's past is looking a looking back and looking Kadima looking forward is kid'n so a batkid then Santana is talking about the chuhwa through chuhwa looking back to the past and forward to the future we reform on ourselves we recreate ourselves into this new being and that new being has the privilege and opportunity of join close to Hashem with this in mind we can understand further the the word itself shall file that we started talking about the shofar how the shofar connects with chuhwa so the word show found is actually pay raises the root word the root word for shofar means to improve to become better the Shepherd and so it all comes together truth itself is I did making ourselves better recreating ourselves becoming this new person but this new person that we become is really the person that Shem had in mind from the beginning when I Shep created man and said those words Nasser Adam with Salome no let us make man in our image in the defying image what he had in mind is a man standing upright eyes to the sky you know recognizing his divine creator and his of course feet on the ground committed to doing the will of God in this world to becoming a holy person in a holy nation in this world and ultimately transform in this entire world to recognize the greatness of Hashem this is the concept the ultimate concept of children in the end of the days were taught that God will blow his great shofar and the entire world will wake up from its dreaming and sleeping in to Hashem we have the privilege of having a start every year at the same process each one in his own personal way we come back to on Shemin Rosh Hashanah we accept his kingship and we hear the shofar to wake up from the depths of our heart to the truth of why we hear and to the truth service [Music] [Applause]